A couple of cool tourney spots, full house on the river

Poker Strategy
1

Big Guess 250K buy in
starting stack 3,000
level 1 (effective stacks are 3K)

No reads at the table as we’re in the first couple of hands and none of these players are familiar to me.

15/30 no antes (45) 8 handed
One fold to V(villain) 3 otb(lo jack) opens to 90, H(hero) is in the co(cut off) with ThTd 3!(bets) to 222, folds back to V who calls.

Flop (489) 7h9d9c V x(checks,) H 199, V c(calls)… went with 40% here to charge A high and broadways(mostly folding.)

Turn (887) Ts (board now 7h9d9c Ts) V x(checks,) H x(checks) back. Thoughts on H’s turn check, should we betting here, if so what sizing?

River (887) Ac (board now 7h9d9c Ts Ac) V leads for 665, H?

Same tournament
level 3 (effective stacks 1132)

Reads with main V are he’s been opening a decent amount, not crazy but at this passive NIT table(don’t be a NIT people) it’s fair to say he is the most active after yours truly.

30/60 no antes (90) 8 handed
Folds to main V(3717) 2 otb(hi jack,) he makes it 180, btn(1132) calls, H(2526) sb with 6d6c calls, bb folds

Flop (600) 4dJh7c H x, V 300, btn folds, H calls

Turn (1200) 7h (board 4dJh7c 7h) H(2046 V covers) x, V 700, H?

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First hand.

Pretty big raise from LJ there, you 3bet, fine, would maybe go a bit bigger (around 250 or so, doesn’t change much anyway).
Fine flop, gotta c-bet here, IMO good size too. Here he calls, he has to have some good hands like : AT/Js+, 66,77,88,… Does he have JJ+ or would he 4-bet those ? Difficult to say, maybe he still has JJ though, we’ll find out soon…
Turn : :drooling_face: What do we do, check or bet small? I like checking, because this card doesn’t help him much, so I prefer letting him see a good river (J+). If we want to bet, we could, by betting small, but I think he’s pretty much folding a lot in his range, except big boats. So all in all, I think checking is fine, you’re not missing out any value almost. And river you can fire big and will get this value back, in greater amount most of the time.
River : pretty juicy card, exactly what we wanted. He leads, with what hands, which you’re beating ? AK, AQ, AJ, AT, slow-played A9 and 77 mainly. What hands are beating you ? 99, AA (would 4-bet almost always), so basically only 99. Your turn check maybe seems weak to him, so which makes hands like AT pretty credible for a lead. If we raise, is he going to call us with some weaker hands? Yeah, A9, 77, maybe AT, AK idk… We have some value to grab by raising.
So I’m value-raising here, to something like 1950 here I think. Folding would be uhhhh not so good, and calling is way too nitty. If he has 99, I mean, ok, just a huge setup. Only one combo of 99 though, would be rare. And if he has AA, it would just be strangely played by him, and a cooler aswell. (3 combo’s only)

P.S. By giving us the second hand, you basically gave us some info by saying you survived that hand, but anyway, doesn’t really change much for the analysis haha!
And once again, thanks for posting Dayman, I’ll do the same when I got some hands… I’m playing only like 2/4k blinds (getting up again after I got down to 0 chips again, lol) so the level is sometimes not really high. Will do my best though :wink:

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Second hand.

Pre : would do the same.
Flop : I often fold these spots, they’re not exploitable enough IMO. You’ve got a BDSD, so you could choose for a call and try to fire turn and river to take it down. In such tourneys, I still prefer to play pretty passive, but these spots really depend on how you play yourself.
I guess you called here with a view to raise him turn with such a turn. It pairs the board, you can easily rep trips here or other pretty strong hands. What does he have is still the question ? Some airs that missed, and some medium hands like QJ, JTs for example, etc … ?
If that’s what you think you could maybe go for a check-raise here, but I think that with this call on the flop, you shouldn’t be folding on this turn.
So either fold (flop) or call (flop)/raise (turn). First option is the safest one, the one I do prefer I think.
What did you do ? Would be a nice line to go for the second option!

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Hand 1: I like the check back on the turn. Raise on the river to about 1400 or 1500. I would want him to think I was making a weak steal attempt and that I would fold to a shove. This could possibly get him to bluff-shove. If he shoves, snap call and say, “That’s right, who’s yer daddy?” Unless he beats you, in which case you say, “OMG, this site is so rigged!” Snappy patter is very important!

Hand 2: Fold or shove. You probably have more 7s than he does, so I would lean towards a shove. Have a few snappy retorts ready, just in case.

You are probably way behind the tourney average stack, so it’s time to make something happen!

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I think you’re missing out too much value against big hands which you’re now beating. With a 250k buy-in, I don’t think he’s going to bluff shove this spot, on this kind of board, but I see what you mean. By raising here, you’re already showing so much strength, that he isn’t going to do that. What would he bluff shove with ?

IMO, you can’t fold on this turn if you call the flop. But yeah, other option is raise, you got more 7’s than he does, of course… He isn’t going to bet that many 7’s flop whatsoever.
And I agree on your raise, it would be a shove with around 2k behind.

That is true too, pretty good spot here.

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I think there is a fallacy in this line of thinking. We do what we do in poker from street to street to get information. The information we gain added with what we already know should dictate how we proceed in our decision making process.

I like where you @ValueFish and @SunPowerGuru are going with the analysis, I’ll get into it more when I have some down time. Until then, cheers guys.

7

I don’t think you’re missing value by betting 1400 or 1500. Bigger and he folds more. I would want to give him the impression that I was on a steal and could fold. I would leave him enough that he might think I would fold to a shove.

I don’t assume someone playing a 250k tourney is a poker god. Plenty of people enter those with less than 1 mill in their bank. Get rich quick is their goal.

Both players involved were active. H’s table image might induce a bluff with whatever 2 cards the V had. And that bet size could well induce a shove with 2nd best hand too. The bluff-shove is secondary, but leave him the chance to make that mistake, even if it happens rarely.

Making a little over the min raise isn’t really showing that much strength, but that depends on the players involved.

On hand 2, I think calling is the worst thing you can do.

8

I don’t agree, because calling this flop is horrible. What are you hoping for ? A 5% chance of a 6 on the turn?
Folding the flop is the best move here, and by calling you’re just wanting to exploit this situation by playing out of line. Do you think that calling flop is fine?

But anyway, you misunderstood me by thinking that I was talking about it in general. I said that because calling the flop is not an EV+ move if you’re thinking about it like that, so you have to have a plan on how to play turn, and folding turn would be an option you want to forget when calling flop.

9

Min-raise is often a “I have the nuts/a boat” move, especially in these kind of spots, especially if you’re saying that people have no skill there, or are everything except gods…
You’re almost not leaving any fold equity over, so you’re basically saying “please call, please give me a bit more chips ; I can make it a good price for you if you want ;)”

So yeah, min-raising these spots is not the way to go IMO, also depends on how you play and what you want to do.

But still, I don’t understand now. If the bluff-shove is rare and secondary, why take it into consideration here? Basically, we’re making it a good price to have him make a possible bluff-shove that is almost never going to happen ? I don’t understand.

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BTW, totally agree with this, if you’re talking about the turn.

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No, you are trying to tap him in when he has 2nd best hand. You want him allin, but want him to think it’s his idea. That’s the main idea of a smaller bet size.

Does it look like a value bet? Well, sometimes, but that depends on the player. It could look weak, which means you are strong, or look strong so makes you look weak. We can go back and forth with that all day. I think it induces a crying call or shove often enough that it makes up for the slight loss of value from a little larger bet. A bigger bet mostly has worse hands calling or folding. Let’s give him the chance to make a bigger mistake.

Why mention the bluff-shove? Why not mention it? It’s not the basis for the bet size, but it does happen, so was worth mentioning.

12

Yeah ok, but I thought, from what I read, that your whole idea of a min raise was only correlated with the bluff-shove option, which made me question it.

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Fair enough. Yeah, the bluff-shove is a minor secondary benefit, not the main goal.

By the way, there is a 250 k tourney running now. Anyone ranked at 7,000 or above has less than 2 million bank. If you open the tables and look, you might be surprised at how many people in that tourney can’t afford to be there.

Edited to add: 1400 or 1500 is a little over min raise. The ideal size for a tap bet is about 40-45% of your opponent’s current stack. The main idea is that a common way of thinking is that, “if a call will commit half your chips, you might as well shove and add a little fold equity.” Basically, we are playing on this common way of thinking in order to get them allin.

14

This is just is not true… clicking it back here shows extreme strength. Out 665 goes in and the pot is 2200, we have 1900 back. If we click back to 1400 we’re giving V 4:1 on a call and it’s never ever a bluff. Whatever he would call or shove with he would just call a shove. I think shoving all in would actually work to keep his calling range a bit wider than a min raise click back. Not to mention we would now have 600 back and if he shoved would give us an insane 6.5:1 on a call.

Only a couple hands in so no one is “active” at this point.

What parts of my range should I be calling with? I’m going to have x/r on this flop, some give up folds and a calling range when I’m playing with cold calling the sb in my strategy. V bets 300 into 600 and the btn folds, is 66 strong enough to x/r on this flop, it’s too strong to fold. I don’t need to hit a miracle 6 ott to continue, it will be the best hand here a ton and folding getting 3:1 on a call would be tragic.

It’s the only play IMO, this is a very static flop of 4J7r, you just can’t be folding 66 on this board with 25% equity.

THIS all day, and given SPR it’s even more true… there is no room for this to be a bluff or anything but nutted in a 3! pot that went bet bet flop turn.

15

I think you’re projecting! Yes, a clickback is often a bluff here. I wish I saved hands because I could show you hundreds of times that it was. Eh, but OK.

Just out of curiosity, what was the other player’s rank and how long has he been on the site?

As far as the “active” comment, I guess I was confusing that with the other hand. My Bad.

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16

I don’t recall V’s rank, I probably didn’t even look. He was in a 250K but not familiar to me so he definitely could have been over playing/shot taking his bank roll. I will give that in this population, especially the lower ranks there are players who will open/call with crap like 95o and would shove if I clicked back. My issue is that most of the players who will take this line with their value are going to call a shove anyway. Now, while I could get a small percentage of players who are the worst of the worst to shove the river as a bluff, the number of times that happens and I get that little extra will be far out weighed by the times I shove and get called. How often do you believe V’s in general will be shoving this river spot as a bluff? He’d be laying a price of 600 to win 4900 total pot.

Even so, you don’t see players click back as bluff and then call re raises.

17

Do you have any evidence to support that, or is it a feeling? There’s no obvious way for either of us to know for sure, either way. What I do know is that I’ve used that line many times and it often gets the results I want. Would they have called my shove every time? No, probably not. Most of the time? Probably.

Would a smaller bet be called more often than a bigger bet? Do we really have to debate that question? I think yes, if you think no, then OK, we don’t agree. I’m OK with that.

Not very often, but sometimes. Rarely, I think I have said several times now.

Well, now ya lost me. If I’m reading that right, you are making my point. V bets, H small raises back, which can look like a bluff, so V jams thinking H is bluffing and can’t call.

I’ve been up all night and am going to bed now! I’ll reread this when I get up, it’s likely that I’m not understanding something. Posting 2 hands at once has me all confuzulated.

18

I feel the same way, I won’t do it again.

The point I was making was if H click back as a bluff there is no point in raising as V can just call with his value and not need to bluff. Maybe our differences lie in the player pools we play in. I see very few players bluffing rivers for 13% raise at 20/40 plus, a few more in the 250K plus tours but not that many more.

The thing that I’m saying is while you may be right, we can click back with value and sometimes induce a shove from V (as a bluff or value I don’t think matters when we have the third nuts and only lose to 4 combos) I really don’t think it’s more profitable than jamming ourselves. Both plays in this player pool can be +EV, I just strongly believe that jamming will be higher +EV.

I heard the sleep thing, I’m on about 9-10 hours in the past two days as well and feel like I’m rambling. I appreciate all the feedback, keep it coming.

19

Interesting hands and good discussion here. Thanks!

A couple of thoughts from me.

Hand 1
I prefer betting the turn to checking back. Villain has tons of hands in range that called that flop and will call a turn bet. Plus you reopen the betting and give Villain a chance to attempt a check-raise on you with their 9x. I like betting 30-40% pot again here to encourage all the turned draws to come along.

Hand 2
What do you think of donk betting the turn 7? I agree with SPG that we have more 7s than Villain, which should cause us to consider donk leading.

20

I reread this and see that I had it in my head that hand 1 was vs another very active player, but this isn’t the case. Against an unknown at the beginning of the tourney, a bigger bet or shove is probably much better. Against somebody who is not only playing 30% of the hands, but trying to win them all, I like the smaller bet because there’s a good chance they will do what you want and come over the top with 2nd best hand. I can’t really think of a way to test this, so eh.

Part of the reason i would tend to take this line is what i think of as “projection.” Some people assume their opponents have the same basic approach to the game as they do. Nits tend to see a monster in the closet of every bet and raise, maniacs think you are bluffing because they would be bluffing, and so on. As Hari Dass once said, “When a pickpocket meets a Holy Man, he sees only the pockets.” In effect, these players aren’t playing the player, they try to play themselves.

I usually look at rankings and how long someone has been on the site. This isn’t that reliable, but there are bits of info one can glean. For example, if someone is playing a 100k SnG and has less than a million in the bank, one can reliably deduce that they aren’t afraid to take risks. This attitude does manifest in their play. I would bluff such a player less and upsize my bets and raises to extract more value.

If I may offer a suggestion, can we narrow the focus to 1 hand and talk it to death, then move on to the other hand?

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